Brainwashed at the exit of the giftshop

Battle field: Opera Gallery, enemies: my friend and Mr. Brainwash (pseudonym for Thierry Guetta). Wait a minute, wait a minute … Let’s take a glance at the prologue. Why was I struggling? Well, I was just very skeptical about the visit to the glamorous gallery in the same kind of area, but my friend was very persistent so I decided to give up. I can tell you, that sometimes surrender can be more productive than a battle won. I realized that the battle was lost even before putting a leg inside, because before entering the gallery we were welcomed by one of Mr. Brainwash’s works, which immediately captured my heart.

The gallery itself has a small capacity, but the scope of Mr. Brainwash is inversely proportional to the size of the gallery. Mr. Brainwash’s works clearly can not be compared with the National Gallery’s cherished portraits painted professionally, but it’s not even worth the comparison, because it’s totally two different worlds, hence the comparison would be immoral and moronic (in the same way how it is ridiculous arguing about science and religion). Artist’s works can cause outrage or admiration, but whether one or the other, the most intriguing point is that the work of his leaves a titanic effect on the observer. We took awhile there, quite long enough, because there we looked deeper, esteemed the technique of the artist, tried to reveal the hidden messages and looked for undisclosed purpose of the work. Thierry Guetta employs famous artistic and historic images, many of which are copyrighted and changes the originals in the slight or spreads across the ways, which is similar to Banksy’s style. At first I was confused and asked myself if this is somehow related to Banksy. Well, it was but never mind that, because both of them are equally amazing.

I watched ‘Exit Through the Gift Shop’ – a documentary about Thierry Guetta, Banksy, Space Invador,… – at an event during Freshers Week and was quite entertained and amazed at the same time. Now I’m a bit mad at myself I didn’t know about this exhibition, it’s so cool for you to have seen it 🙂